Religion owns and courts thy kindly power To gild the dark, and bless the lightsome hour. And sacred anthems long from earth will rise, To cheer man's path through this dark pilgrimage, By night, by day, the sunshine and the shade. Teach me, while here, the strains which angels sing; Tune my last breath with pure seraphic love, Bloomingdale, April 20, 1811. MARCELLUS. VARIETY. “Nobody's foe but his own." How often do we hear this pernicious proverb applied in such a manner as to encourage vice and immorality. It must be a hurtful saying, because it is not founded in truth. It originates in evil, and goes upon this false principle, that sin, in many cases, is inimical only to the person who commits it. To expose and refute this, is only to state and exemplify it. A drunkard, for instance, does not fight and quarrel in his cups, violate his neighbor's wife, or do other acts of violence and hostility; he is, therefore, nobody's foe but his own. Is this true? Far from it. He hereby strengthens the hands of the wicked, and keeps them in countenance by the evil and bad example he sets; and this is being their foe. Besides which, he is an enemy to his family and relatives, (if he has any) or to the poor, (if he has none) in mispending that substance in riot and excess, which should have been for their benefit and advantage. And he is a foe also to the community and country he lives in, in mispending that time, and impairing and destroying that health and strength which might have been employed in their use and service. And, to crown all, he is God's enemy and foe, in breaking his laws, and trampling his mandates and orders under foot. All this sufficiently proves this is no proverb of Solomon's, but the raw and undigested saying of some ignorant and unthinking mind. Cease, reader, to hear such instructions! it causeth to err from the words of knowledge. EFFECTS PRODUCED BY THEIR CONTRARIES. How many natural effects do we see daily produced by their contraries? Thus it is that poisons are ingredients in the composition of the most excellent antidotes. The oils of tartar and vitriol, mixed together, grow hot and boil, though separately cold. A paste, made with equal parts of filings of iron and sulphur, takes fire when sprinkled with common water. A piece of unslacked lime, which is cold, receives a brisk heat by the mixture of water, which is still colder. Ice will produce fire, if fair water is made to boil for half an hour to make the air pass out of it. Two inches of this water must afterwards be exposed to a very cold air, and when it is frozen, the extremities of the ice are to be melted before a fire, till the ice acquires a convex spherical figure on both sides. Then, with a glove, this kind of burning mirror being presented to the sun, and the rays being assembled by refraction in a common focus, will set fire therein to some fine gun-powder. If a phial of round glass, and full of water, is exposed to the sun, when it is very hot, as in summer, from nine o'clock in the morning till three in the afternoon, it will set fire to fine gun-powder placed in the focus of this burning mirror made of water. These experiments show clearly, that the rays of the sun lose nothing of their nature, by piercing and passing through the pores of water and ice. The following epitaph holds an elevated rank among the few specimens of this sort of writing that have any just claims to poetic merit. It was inscribed on the tomb-stone of two sisters, twins at birth, companions in youth, partners in death, and tenants of the same grave. Fair marble, tell to future days, That here two virgin sisters lie, Whose life employ'd each tongue in praise, In stature, beauty, years, and fame, Together as they grew, they shone So much alike, so much the same, Death quite mistook them both for one. Why is grass green? Because green is the ultimate or lowest manifestation of light, which is truth, and of course the lowest form wherein the life of colors is exhibited; for whatever is of a darker hue than green, partakes proportionably of black, which corresponds to what is false; black being a suffocation of light; just as falsehood is a suffocation or perversion of truth. Now, as in the creation or regeneration of man, the first things that have life are in Gen. i. called herbs, grass, &c. so in the natural world, whatever is of the vegetable system, as being the first dawn of life, or its lowest state of manifestation, is of a green color, because green is the lowest form of the existence of light, which is the life of colors. It is well known that persons of weak eyes can bear to look on things of a green color better than on any other. The fact can only be accounted for by correspondences. The eye is a recipient of light, which corresponds to truth; the weakness of the eye denotes the obscurity of truth; and green being the ultimate or lowest manifestation of light, is on that account better accommodated to weak eyes; for the analogy, or correspondent agreement, between truth and light, and the organs of the former with the objects of the latter, is constantly preserved through all their gradations, from the highest to the lowest forms. Hence as strength of vision corresponds to the purity and brightness of truth; so faintness of sight, together with its organ the eye, when in a disordered or weak state, in like manner corresponds to the obscurity of truth as represented by the color green; which I take to be the true reason why weak eyes can bear to look on objects of a green color, better than on any other. Married, at Concord, (Ms.) by the rev. Mr. Ripley, Mr. JOHN ENGLISH, of Brighton, to Miss NANCY FRENCH, of the former place. Concord being established between these two hostile powers, it seems the latter has determined on a "trip to Brighton,” where it is expected acts of union will eradicate all former prejudices and animosities. VOL. I. M No. 2. The following beautiful little sonnet was first published in England, as long ago as the year 1655, in a work entitled the "Wit's Interpreter, the English Parnassus." There are few modern productions that equal, and none that surpass it in poetic beauty: As beauteous Delia walk'd alone, The feathered snow came softly down, But overcome with whiteness there, In the government of Solikamsky, in Siberia, (says count Strogonoff) there dwells a peculiar race of people called Wodyacks, who are neither Christians, Mahometans, nor yet Idolaters, as all around them are; but have preserved the worship of one God, without any apparent type or image of him, so universal in the East. They have no order of priesthood set apart, but live in families, the head of which officiates as such, when they make an offering of their first fruits in harvest time, which is the only token of religious worship the Russians have ever discovered among them. They call a man Adam in their language, and talk of themselves as the original stock, (the count's term, in French, was la souche) from whence the other parts of this earth were peopled. Their funeral ceremony consists in setting the dead corpse before the relations, when they make a repast, out of which they present a portion to the deceased, and after a short silence they use these general words: "Since thou neither eatest nor drinkest more, we perceive thou hast finished thine exile; therefore return to the country whence thou camest,* and leave thy virtues to thy family:" and then depositing the corpse in the ground, they return to finish the repast, but with the utmost sobriety and regularity. They live in the most perfect equality, giving no precedence, but to the aged, or heads of families. *This is so much like Jacob's account of his pilgrimage to Pharaoh, that every reader must be struck with the analogy. We have been favored with several literal translations of the following epigram, which we have been induced to suppress in favor of the beautiful one, by Dr. Wolcott, in our poetic depart ment. AD SOMNUM. Somne levis quanquam certissima mortis imago, Translation by our correspondent T. M. Mild sleep, though the most suitable image of death, I wish thee for a partner of my couch: benign repose, so much wished for, come; for, how pleasant is it, so to live without life, and so to die without death! SAGACITY OF THE INDIAN RAT. This sagacious animal, knowing the enmity the dragon bears him, and knowing also the insufficiency of his own strength to resist him, not only defends himself, but conquers his enemy by the following stratagem. He makes two entrances to his cave, the one small, and proportioned to the bulk of his own body, the other wider at the surface, but which he draws narrower by degrees, till towards the other end, it is but just wide enough to admit of his passing through. The use of this place is as follows: When the little animal finds himself pursued by that voracious beast, he flies to his cave, which he enters at the wide mouth, not doubting but the dragon will follow him, who, eager for his prey, the large aperture being sufficiently wide to admit his whole body, plunges in, but as it insensibly becomes narrower and narrower, the dragon, who presses violently on, finds himself in the end so straitened, as not to be able either to advance or retreat. The rat, as soon as he perceives this, sallies out of the narrow passage, and in the rear of the dragon, entering the wide one, revenges himself upon him, much at his leisure, converting him into a regale for his appetite, and food for his resentment. A theatrical wit being asked what he thought of the Comet? replied, that he thought it very like "We Fly by Night," and the "Tail of Mystery." |